


I Won't Go Anywhere

by Eizavie



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8087380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eizavie/pseuds/Eizavie
Summary: The party faces another dragon after Sorey has left them. Zaveid is injured and the others get worried--especially Edna.





	

Battles with strong hellions were harder to manage ever since Sorey bonded himself with Maotelus, this was completely evident as the party struggled against a dragon burning down the forest of Bors Ruins. They received word from frantic soldiers in Glaivend Basin near the Hyland entrance—if the dragon took flight from the area it could reach Marlind and cause unthinkable damage.

 

            “I…really hate dragons.” Zaveid huffed as he pulled back one of his pendulums.   He caught sight of Edna through the corner of his eye, she began to cast a spell while Rose armatized with Lailah and stalled the beast with exchanged blows. Alisha followed behind and attempted to pierce one of the beast’s hind legs.   Mikleo focused on putting out the last of the brush fires.

            “If you have time to chatter then I suggest you focus on making yourself useful…Rock trigger!!” Edna raised her umbrella--Boulders sprouted from the earth and struck the beast’s belly. It shrieked, its wings flapping violently as it fell to the ground. The other’s stilled their weapons and looked hesitantly at the monster. Edna closed her umbrella and huffed, her small shoulders relaxing as she slowly approached the dragon’s body.                       

 

Suddenly the beast stirred, its head tilted up and opened its jaws. A ball of magma sprung forth from its mouth toward Edna. Her body froze.

 

            “ **Edna, look out**!!” Mikleo yelled. A barrage of flames erupted from where she stood, bits and pieces of red sputtered out. It sounded as though a bomb had gone off, the sound echoed through the group’s ears. The dust cleared revealing Edna who lay on the floor, unharmed, her expression wide-eyed and horror stricken. She felt some type of warm liquid on her face.

 

            “Hey Edna, you can’t…be too careful around dragons…You know that.” Zaveid coughed.   He had shielded her from the blast, his hands were on either side of her head trembling with strain. A trail of blooded oozed from his temple and stained the strands of his hair red.

            “Zave—“ Edna was quickly tossed aside with a gust of wind, Zaveid spun around, flinging one of his pendulums straight into one of the dragon’s eyes. It roared in pain but still sprung forth, clenching its top and bottom fangs into the Zaveid’s right shoulder and side. He fell back and winced, struggling not to tug his body back for fear his arm would tear off.

            “Tch.” Zaveid gritted his teeth and fought through the pain, he launched his other pendulum into the ground, several chains made of wind and light sprung from the earth and wrapped around the beast. “Rose!”

            “ **Trinity Arrow!!”** Three piercing blows rocketed themselves into the dragon’s ribcage. It gave a terrific cry as it reared backwards and burst into blaze of white light dissipating into the air. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

            “Heh, th-that was close—“

The landscape became blurry and Zaveid found himself tipping over; he plummeted down into the dirt. It was hard to breathe. Edna’s legs had given out on her and she sat watching as the others rushed to their comrade’s side. Mikleo separated himself from Rose and dove down to bring up Zaveid’s dead weight. He gasped upon seeing the alarming amount of blood trickling from the bite wounds. The fangs had made deep gashes into the wind seraph’s flesh. Mikleo swallowed and made a concerned sound deep in his throat.

            “Mikleo, can you get his back? I can’t heal burns like this!” Lailah shrieked in a panic.

            “Hold on..” He shuffled around and pushed away silver and green strands, the ends of the tips were a little burnt from the blast but even worse Zaveid’s back was heavily charred. “Damn, I-I’m not sure. I’ve never healed burns like this…”

 

“Hang in there!” Rose knelt down and traded positions with Mikleo so he and Lailah could to perform healing spells, Zaveid was semi-conscious at best. His eyes remained unfocused and his breathing was shallow---all bad signs. Rose felt her breath catch in her throat—an image of Dezel flashed in her mind. She didn’t want to lose anyone else. She whispered Sorey’s name, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to help this time.

 

She had to get herself together. This was no time to panic.

 

“Lailah? Do you think you can at least close up most of the wound on his side?”

            “Y-yes!” The prime lord lifted her palms above the wound and closed her eyes in concentration. When the gash wouldn’t close up any more the Shepherd began to take her black coat off---she wrapped it tightly around the wound on his side to staunch some of the blood flow.

            “Mikleo, you know wind stepping, right? Save your mana. Marlind is close by…if we can make it there fast we’ll find an inn and grab a panacea bottle.”

            “R-right.” Mikleo agreed.

 

 

Alisha rushed over to Edna and frantically questioned if she was okay. The knight knelt down and reached out a hand to help Edna up--- the small earth seraph hugged herself with her arms; slowly she brought her hands up to her face and shielded her eyes.

 

_Eizen…help._

 

 

 

“Guys…I’m fine really. See? See— **ow—ow…** ” Zaveid yelped as he swung his arm a bit too wildly for an injured person who’d just woken up.

“Will you lay down? Honestly, you’re going to rip everything open and then what?” Lailah scolded.

 

Luckily Mikleo’s knowledge of windstepping granted the group a quick run to the town. Lailah had managed to heal the seraph’s superficial and moderate wounds but the deeper ones required bed rest to fully heal. Zaveid remained upright and fidgeted with the bandage on his chest.

 

“Don’t make us tie you down to the bed.”

“ **Oh** ~ _Laliah_ , I had no idea you were into tha—Eep!” She pinched his thigh.

“You might have been more pleasant to be around when you were _sleeping_ …” Rose mumbled. “We thought you were in serious trouble you know.” She crossed her arms and stood before him. Her Sparrow Feather’s boss-glare took hold of her face.

“I’ve been alive for so long, something like that wasn’t going to kill me!” He dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Is there any way you can loosen these for me…they’re really…suffocating.” He pointed to his bandages, which they had wrapped tightly around his shoulder and chest.

“ _Absolutely not_ , I know you aren’t used to _wearing_ anything but those stay on. Now lay down!” Lailah ordered.

“She’s right Zaveid, you mustn’t push yourself.” Alisha sat on a small wooden stool and gripped at her knees. “A-and we can still get you a shirt if you’re cold also.” She blushed.

“Come on, lay your ass in bed.” Rose coaxed.

“Mm but…well—my back still kind of hurts…” He muttered as he looked down at the bed sheets.

“Perhaps we should have you lay on your stomach.” She helped him turn around on the bed to situate himself. Normally he’d find a way to make a sly remark but a wave of exhaustion suddenly hit him and he felt incredibly lethargic. Lailah frowned upon seeing the burn marks sprawled between his shoulder blades and spine; they hadn’t recovered as well as she had hoped. Without thinking she reached out her fingertips.

“ **AHH—OW OW!”**

“I’m sorry! Does it hurt badly?”

“ ** _Yes_** _!”_ Zaveid cried, a tinge of annoyed anger in his voice.

“Oh dear, perhaps we should ask Mikleo to try another session.”

“Hmm, it looks better than it did a yesterday though.” Rose monitored. “At least we managed to prevent an infection. Mikleo told me he doesn’t have a lot of experience healing burn wounds, but he’s been trying his best every night!

Just then the water seraph entered the room with a small bottle in hand.

“S-sorry.” Mikleo said quietly shutting the door.

“Oh, Mikleo, I didn’t mean it in a bad way!” Rose quickly apologized.

“I know. But I should probably have more knowledge with these things just in case this happens again. Water is supposed to be most effective against burn injuries so at the very least I…” He paused and looked at the ground ashamed. “… Oh by the way, Atakk was kind enough to give me a panacea bottle he found at the mansion.”

“Excellent! This will make them heal up in no time!” Lailah grasped the bottle from the young seraph and rummaged the drawers in the room for cloth. He watched her helplessly and sat on one of the beds beside Rose.

“Mickey-boy, what’re you moping around for?” Zaveid asked cocking his head to the side against the pillow.

“I’m not moping!”

“Yeah you are. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’d feel a _thousand_ times worse without your help. “

Mikleo’s lip quivered, he didn’t say anything.

“I really mean it.” Zaveid smiled, his teeth showing. “Thanks.”

“I’ll ask the innkeeper for some towels.” Alisha volunteered after seeing Lailah try in vain to scour every empty drawer in the room. The princess briefly left the room and returned with a few washcloths in hand and gave them to Lailah.

The fire seraph blotted some of the panacea liquid on a cloth and dabbed at Zaveid’s wounds.  He bit his lip and stuffed his face into the pillow trying not to make any noise; Lailah wasn’t oblivious to this, she saw that he had hid his hands under the cushion and was probably wringing them.   Not to mention he was clearly holding his breath, she could see the sweat forming on his skin. “Are you okay?” She asked after he made a soft whimper into the pillow.

“S-sure…yeah I’m good.” He lied. But, although it hurt it felt nice to have Lailah’s fingertips brush against his skin every once in awhile.

 

He was grateful and quite heart warmed to be surrounded by his friends so he didn’t mind a little pain…except—“Say, where’s Lil’ Edna?” He asked lifting his head up.

 

The others looked at each other worriedly.

 

“She’s in town, she’s just been…kinda absent since that fight.” Mikleo said holding his hand to his chin.

“Yes, I bumped into her as I was doing errands around town but she seemed to ignore me.” Alisha pondered.

“She hasn’t said a word to me either since the other day now that you mention it.” Rose added.

“I think this might be the longest she hasn’t harassed me or called me _Meebo_.” Mikleo internally cringed at the name. Then something dawned on him. “You don’t suppose she’s….feeling **_guilty_ ** do you? Is she capable of that?”

“Now, now, Mikleo. That’s not a very nice thing to say.” Lailah exclaimed. “But I was thinking the last battle had upset her since she’s distanced herself from us...”

“Wait, wait, hold up. Guilty about what? About me being _her knight in shining armor_?” Zaveid waggled his eyebrows.

“ _Please_.” Rose said rolling her eyes.

“Behold my manly charms, dying to save one of my beautiful damsels would be a most fitting end for one such as I~ **OW**!!” He felt a blow to his head. “Lailah, again?!!—er Rose?”

“Don’t joke about that. Don’t ever joke about dying on me.” She said through gritted teeth. Lailah held her hands to her chest, not knowing what to say, as did Alisha. Mikleo froze in place at the sudden tension. Zaveid opened his mouth to speak but was cut off. “You might be used to saying goodbyes but I’m not. It hurts every time I think about Dezel and every time I remember that I might not be around anymore to see Sorey wakeup. So stop it.”

“…Sorry…” He sheepishly replied.

“Good.”

 

Lailah smiled. It was good to see that Rose had a good head on her shoulders in every situation. She thought fondly of how much the young woman loved her seraphim companions.

“Mikleo, can you take over?” Lailah moved out of the way as the water seraph approached.

“Okay...” He hovered his hands over Zaveid’s back. “This might hurt a bit… you were sleeping before so-“

“Don’t worry, Mickey, just get it over with.”

 

Mikleo nodded, he felt a nervous sweat coming on. He was never too confident in his healing powers, and ever since Sorey left he felt a little lost in many of the things he did alone. Sure Sorey never _told_ him what to do but having his presence around gave him more confidence—it made him feel comfortable. He took a deep breath and readied his hands for a release of mana. As soon as he did so Zaveid gasped and clutched at the bed sheet, not expecting the sharp and sudden pain to be worse than when Lailah was dabbing the panacea solution on him earlier. He clenched his jaw, _I must look pathetic_ the thought to himself. Lailah glanced at his death grip against the bed, his knuckles whitened. She took it upon herself to lay a hand on one of them and wrapped her fingers around his.

“Zaveid?” She said gently. Normally he’d be ecstatic from any voluntary touch Lailah gave him but he wasn’t able to enjoy the moment when his back felt like it was on fire again. He squeezed her hand, trying desperately not to crush it. “Just a bit longer.” The rest of the room stayed in uncomfortable silence, watching as Mikleo’s aura began to fade from his hands. He left out a heavy breath and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. He inspected Zaveid’s back as the wind seraph heaved soft breaths of relief. The wounds weren’t a hundred percent healed. By itself it would take another month to heal but with arte assistance perhaps just a week. He stilled himself once more and reached out his hands but Lailah halted him.

“I think that’s enough for now, we don’t want you to tire yourself out as well.” She stated gently. Mikleo frowned, he felt useless. He looked over to Zaveid and noticed that he’d passed out.

“He’ll live.” Rose added as she walked over, she brushed some stray hairs away from Zaveid’s face and gently rolled him over onto his side. “Everyone’s worried about you, dummy, so get some rest.”

  

A few days later and Lailah had given Zaveid permission to walk around outside for fresh air. It felt nice to have the wind on his back, he was starting to get cabin fever from staying at the inn for so long. He wandered off on his own, though he loved the attention from the girls and Mikleo he uncharacteristically hated being doted on. His bandages were replaced with some tape and gauze ; the burn wounds only marked a little bit of his back thanks to Mikleo’s healing. He strolled around the Great Tree and waved at Rohan and Atakk as he passed by. His sights wandered to a few human children running past him to chase after a small dog, he laughed when one of them dove after the pup but fell flat on his face as he missed. An abrupt pain hit him in the side distracting him from the townsfolk. A familiar beige parasol was pulled back and a frowning Edna greeted him.

            “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

            “Lailah finally cut my leash loose, I am free to soar the winds~”

            “I see.”

            “Where’ve you been? I woke up and my heart was broken when I didn’t see your sparkling face.” He explained with an exaggerated bow of his arms. She didn’t respond, instead she seemed to hide her face under her umbrella. “Edna?” His voice turned serious. “You weren’t hurt were you?”

            “No.”

            “Good, good. Eizen would’ve been mad at me if I let you get hurt!”

            “Why did you do it?”

            “Do what?”             
            “You protected me.”

            “Well yeah, I wouldn’t be a very good gentleman if I let you get hurt.”

            “But you got hurt…you almost got _killed_.” She mumbled.

            “Well one of us would’ve gotten hit anyways, might as well have been me. Besides, Eizen wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, right?

 

She made a small noise and squeezed the handle of her umbrella.

“Eizen’s **dead**! You could’ve died! What am I supposed to do if **you** die too?!” She screeches.

 

Well that certainly wasn’t what Zaveid was expecting to hear.

 

            “…All you ladies keep yelling bout me kicking the bucket this week.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his head.   Edna was still hidden under her umbrella. “My bad, Edna... I’m sorry I made you worry.”

            “Be careful next time.” She demanded. The wind seraph thought it odd since it was actually her who wasn’t being careful but he decided not to bring it up.

            “Right.” He hesitated for a second but gambled to reach out and hold her hand anyway. It was a little awkward considering the height difference. Luckily she didn’t hit him like he thought she would. A warm and gentle breeze surrounded the two of them. Zaveid felt her grip tighten.

“I won’t go anywhere, I promise.”


End file.
